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Linda was a kind and gentle woman. The type of woman that stopped on dark roads to assist a stranger whose car had broken down, the kind of woman that would pay for someone’s groceries if they fell short of money, she was a God fearing woman, yes she was, but Linda had a darkeness that surrounded her soul, a darkness that silenced her laughter, and a darkness that plagued her joy.

Linda was also a woman of beauty and style.She could make A thrift store dress look like it came from Macy’s. Linda didn’t sew nor did she design, but the essence of her soul as dark as it was gave a sudden radiance that lit up the darkest room. It’s called pretending you know. Linda did that very well. Was she a fake? Oh no, not at the least. Was she phoney? Not one bit. Lind just learned how to maneuver around her pain so life looked simplistic and perfect in the eyes of a stranger. She didn’t fool us. We would watch her cry in the late night hours in hopes that a gentle hand or a loving touch would come down from the sky with a voice of security reassuring her that everything would be alright.

Her life wasn’t really that bad off as she thougt it to be. She is a wonderful mother, a swell cook, and her husband (the engineer) is to die for. Was he a unfaithful? No. Was he an abuser? No. Karl came home everyday at 6:00pm just in time to have dinner with his family and spend the rest of his evening staring into those big beautiful light brown eyes of his favorite girl Mrs. Linda Chapman.

As we continued to watch, we began to feel a bit saddened of what had become of this beautiful earthly vessel and so we inquired about her and found that she too as most women had lost herself in the raising of her children, tending to the needs of others and making sure Mr. Chapmen recieved the best of care, after all she hasn’t worked since the birth of her younget son, and that was over 17yrs ago. While the research continued we had been informed that this is the time in Linda’s life that she would feel alone, useless and forgotten; after all Christopher Chapman was headed off to the University of South Carolina in two weeks so she had just a short amount of time to sort out her life and figure out where to go from there.

Would she work? Who would hire Her? Would she go back to school? It had been over 20yrs since she even attempted to open a text book and besides she only had five more classes to go before she would graduate with her Masters in Psychology; But that had to be put on hold so that she could help raise the children and be the wife that she felt she needed to be.

We get it now. She’s lonely and she’s afraid of the future. We know she loves God because we here her pray every morning, every night, and oftentimes during the day. Her Bibles are all worn out from the late night studies and the weekly Bible studies that allow her some type of freedom from being couped up in that small but tidy apartment all day.

Aha! We got it! It isn’t that she doesn’t love God, or doesn’t trust Him, somewhere,somehow she lost a part of her and pieces of her faith have floated off with it. We can’t take it any longer. It’s time to be about our Father’s business and go fulfill the assignment that God has sent us to do.

As we begin to surround Linda and minster to her, droppings of peace fell from our wings and covered her until her tears tried up. As she got up off the floor our feet guided her to the bedroom and layed her tired worn soul down so that God could continue to speak to us concerning her.

This was six years ago. Linda’s doing fine now, but every now and again we like to check on the people that almost didn’t make it and rejoice over the fact that they did. It was so amazing to see God bottle up their tears and send (us) his ministering angels to revive their spirits, and protect them from the hand of the wicked one.

People often say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves. Author Salma Hayek

“Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity” Margaret D. Nadauld

Romans 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

A Time of Reflection
There are times where people make it difficult for us to love them, then there are times where loving people seems relatively easy. However, it doesn’t matter whether it is an enemy or a friend our responsibility as Christians is to love others as Christ has loved us. Do something out of the ordinary today take a difficult co-worker to lunch, invite that mean cantankerous boss to dinner at your house, or just simply say a few words of kindness to someone who hasn’t been quite nice to you besides, if we love our enemies just as much as we love our friends it will give God the opportunity to bless us and allow others to see the Christ in us as well.

Prayer
I know that some people are very difficult to love so Lord, I ask that you give me a heart like Christ so that I can love people in spite of their short comings and speak only kind words when their actions are mean, malicious, and unfavorable to heaven. Let my heart continue to flow with an everlasting love so that my actions will soothe and revive the soul of the wicked. In Jesus name. Amen

“Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray—not shaking angry fists at enemies but raising holy hands to God. And I want women to get in there with the men in humility before God, not primping before a mirror or chasing the latest fashions but doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it.” (The Message)

Oftentimes we get so angry with people when they lack certain things such as loyalty, respect, temperance, and love. I have come to find out that if we are not taught certain things or have asked God to ignite these characteristics within us then we are just mere mortals carrying an empty soul with the potential of being a wonderful person.